Your fruit bowl is loaded with toxins

Bright yellow. No pock marks. Smells fine. But before you grab that ripe and juicy mango, here's a word of caution. There's every chance that it has been artificially ripened by calcium carbide, a cancer-causly ripened by calcium carbide, a cancer-causing chemical.

| TNN | Updated: Jun 10, 2015, 06:55 IST

Bright yellow. No pock marks. Smells fine. But before you grab that ripe and juicy mango, here's a word of caution. There's every chance that it has been artificially ripened by calcium carbide, a cancer-causly ripened by calcium carbide, a cancer-causing chemical.
It's not just the kingly mangoes, almost every fruit in the market is dunked in, jabbed by, gassed or coated with chemicals. It's done to ripen them prematurely , to make them last longer and to make them look yummier.

So if mangoes are ripened in dark, dingy godowns amid calcium carbide sachets, water melons are injected with erythrosine to give a darker red hue while the highly pestsusceptible grapes are first subject to ex cessive pesticide spraying and then ripened by highly concentrated chemicals.

Of the 5,000 kg of fruits that come to Russell that come to Russell Market, the biggest wholesale fruit market in the city, over 3,000 kg go to five-star hotels, restaurants and clubs that require the best quality load every morning. Of the remaining, 10 per cent are rejected for reasons ranging from under-ripening, small size or presence of insects. The rest of the 2,000 kg fruits are kept aside for public consumption. They are bought by retail buyers, pushcart vendors and finally the unsuspecting public.

“We know that fruits received at Russell Market are artificially ripened, especially mangoes and bananas. But we have no control over this. If a fruit is decayed, we keep it aside and over 150 kg of such fruits go to the bin daily. However, the fruits rejected by five-star hotels and restaurants are resold to the local fruit vendors for a lower price,“ says Mohammed Idris Choudhary, secretary, Russell Market Traders' Association. Artificial ripening also impacts the fragrance and taste of the produce, he adds. However, the fruit vendors at Russell Market have been getting complaints against the Kashmiri and Washington variety of apples for their wax coating. “We are getting complaints from regular buyers who prefer the saffron coloured, not-so shining apples compared to the Kashmiri and Washington ones,“ says Mohammed Idris.

As for mangoes, Srinivas Gowda, president of the Mango Growers Association, Chikkaballapur, admits there are other effective ways to ripen mangoes, like the ethyl fumigation method. “They put it in a water solution of the compound with caustic soda and release the gas. This way, the fruit is uniformly ripened,“ he says.

While the gover nment departments take action at times, they haven't been able to effectively curb the spread of these forbidden fruits. “Most of the artificial ripening activities are rampant in godowns operated by the middlemen. Eight such godowns were seized last week and tonnes of mangoes destroyed in Mysuru,“ said Dr H S Shivakumar, joint director, food safety, Public Health Institute. Calcium carbide crystals were used in these godowns. In Bengaluru they were yet to take vigilant action, he added.

(Inputs by Kavana Desai)

TIMES VIEW

Consumers have long known that fruits are often artificially ripened so that they can be brought to market quickly. Not so long ago, some fruits would be available only during particular seasons and we would look forward to them when they would arrive in the bazaars.Market forces have pushed growers to use chemicals to hasten the process and meet customer demands. Only aware and discriminating customers can put an end to this as they are the end users and will ultimately pay the price for this folly. The nutritional benefits of fruits will be negated by the chemicals we ingest.

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